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The court will hear oral arguments about whether to close off one possible avenue of legal relief for consumers who are injured by generic drugs. Generic manufacturers are arguing that they should be shielded from lawsuits because they have no discretion to change the product or its labeling.

A 2011 decision by the court protected generic manufacturers from the most common kind of lawsuit involving prescription drugs: so-called failure-to-warn cases involving improper labeling. In that case, PLIVA v. Mensing, the court ruled that a generic drugmaker could not be held liable for failing to adequately warn consumers of side effects in its labeling because federal law requires generic drugs to carry the same label as the brand name.

The case that’s coming to the court now, Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, is different. It asks whether the makers of a defective drug — even if they can’t change the label — could just stop selling the product without violating federal law and be held to account if they don’t.

The case involves an anti-inflammatory drug in the same class as ibuprofen. It’s called Sulindac, and it has a rare but known side effect called toxic epidermal necrolysis, a life-threatening skin condition.

Karen Bartlett took Sulindac for shoulder pain and suffered burnlike wounds on 60 percent to 65 percent of her body, according to her brief in the case. The New Hampshire woman spent months in a medically induced coma while her wounds were treated, and she was fed by a tube for a year, endured two major septic shock episodes and suffered damage to her eyes that left her legally blind.

A jury awarded Bartlett $21 million in damages and the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it. The appeals court noted that while the company had no choice over the content of the warning label, “the decision to make the drug and market [Sulindac] in New Hampshire is wholly its own.”